Slacking Is Wasted On The Young

An internet acquaintance, whom I'm sponsoring for Inferno this year, sent me email commenting on my Slacker piece. And he got me thinking more about the subject. Here, in part, is my reply email...

"As for the Slacker piece, there's a book that's really big in France right now, written by a 20-something française, called 'Bonjour Paresse.' (Paresse is the french word for laziness, although it has connotations more along the lines of languid. I love the wordplay, referencing 'Bonjour Tristesse,' or, as it's usually put in english, "Goodmorning, Heartache." I only saw a reference to it in an article about the student demonstrations over there right now, but it got me thinking.

"When I first moved to NYC, I was working for Ernst & Young, the largest professional services (mostly accounting) firm worldwide, in the legal department, as a paralegal. It didn't pay very well--althhough interestingly, I was making more there than I am now, almost twenty years later. I was a really good paralegal, which I used to say is like being the tallest building in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. So what? At one point, one of the lawyers I worked with took me aside and said she was really impressed with me, she knew I didn't make a lot there, and with a phone call she could get me a job working for a Big NYC Law Firm where I'd be making about $55,000/year. It took me no time at all to decline her offer. I just knew that if I was making $55,000/year, I'd be trapped in that dead-end job until I died. I'd be stuck, since you quickly get used to however much money you're making. And, as luck would have it, a year and a half later, I had what was probably the most satisfying job I've ever had, working for a member of the New York City Council. And I took a pay cut to go and work for him [g].

"So I think that these are ideas that have been kicking around in my head for a while now.

"And I think that I was moved in part to write because the same thoughts that you're thinking I've thought, too. In her late forties, my sister developed a strange, slowly debilitating, and ultimately fatal illness called Primary Pulmonary Hypertension. After she died, I found her diary among her effects. At one point, she was writing about how the worst part of what was happening to her was that slowly possibilities were being taken away: "I'll never be able to ride a horse again; I'll never be able to swim across Lake Nockamixon again; I'll never be able to fall in love again; I'll never be able to have sex again." It was heartbreaking to read, but I think that time does that to all of us. But, by way of compensation, we get the gift that we don't have when we're young: the present moment. (Young people only have the future.)

"I had a wonderful day today. After a slightly abbreviated night at the Bike Stop, the leather bar in Philadelphia, I managed to get six hours of sleep. Yesterday was cold and rainy, but today we have warm sun and clear blue Spring skies. I went to church for Palm Sunday, and then sat in Starbucks for a few hours and read the New York Times. Now, I'm going to make myself something to eat: split pea and ham soup (out of a can), to which I add toast and bleu cheese. A younger version of myself would be feeling bored and rammy. But I can let go of all the things I'm not doing, and haven't done. (Mostly. I have my eras of wistfulness.)"

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